Two Chadwick students receive Gold Keys for ceramic artwork

by
Marie Bucklin - 2015-03-19

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﻿Late last year, two Chadwick students, junior Randy Friedman and senior Ignacio Sedano, entered some of their ceramic art pieces in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Both received Gold Key honors at the regional level for their entries.

The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards is a national competition that has existed since 1923.

According to the program’s website: “The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards have recognized the vision, ingenuity, and talent of our nation’s youth, and provided opportunities for creative teens to be celebrated.”

The program’s mission is to “identify students with exceptional artistic and literary talent and present their remarkable work.”

Last year, some 255,000 works were submitted into the competition. The best pieces are then selected to be regionally recognized.

The most outstanding art pieces are chosen to be nationally recognized and sent to Washington, D.C., to be entered into a national art show.

This is the first year that any of the Chadwick ceramics students have entered the Scholastic Art & Writing competition.

Two years ago, then-Chadwick junior Emily Robertson entered her writing into the competition and was nationally recognized.

Friedman entered a teapot set into the competition. He describes his style as “clean and reformed.”

Sedano entered a set of three bottles. “Bottles are, like, my thing. For those three, each one is similar in the silhouette and with the gold copper leaf ring around the bottle. They are inspired by oil bottles,” he said.

Friedman is currently taking Ceramics 3 Honors, while Sedano is taking AP Ceramics with plans to possibly minor or at least take a ceramics class in college.

Friedman says he will continue to take ceramics at Chadwick and possibly some form of art study in college.

“I feel that it is very therapeutic to take art, so I enjoy doing it in high school and that is why I have not dropped it and taken up another academic class.

“In college I will probably find some way to take a break in academics through art,” Friedman said.

Annie Webster, ceramics teacher and Head of the Art Department, has been encouraging her students to enter various art competitions.

“I mention different exhibitions and competitions that are available, and then I try to encourage all the 11th- and 12th-graders to at least enter one show a year,” she said.

To submit their art pieces, Sedano and Friedman had to write artists’ statements that were placed alongside a picture of their work.

“It was really easy to submit my pieces and it was really fun,” Friedman said.

Webster has just recently, within the last three years, started to recommend that her students enter their work into shows. She believes that the directive has had a positive impact on the students.

“I think it is a really important part of the art-making process to put your work out there.

“Whether it gets accepted into the show or if it’s rejected, it’s just a really good learning process and is a valuable tool for the students to expose and have to describe their work,” Webster said.